Audition

2001

Japan

1h 55min

18

Directed by: Miike Takashi

Cast: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina

'Where have all the good girls gone?' asks the chauvinistic Yoshikawa of his widowed, middle-aged business partner Aoyama (Ishibashi). The latter thinks he's found one, when he sets up a series of auditions to select a new wife: former ballerina Asami (Shiina), who's young, beautiful, and submissive. But where have the scars on her legs come from, and what is the nature of her interest in pain? After a deliberately measured build-up, Takashi assaults the viewer's senses with a truly nightmarish finale, which threatens to overwhelm the film's critique of male Japanese attitudes to women.